


Five Conversations Nadeshiko Didn't Expect To Have

by vashti_lives



Category: Cardcaptor Sakura
Genre: 5 Things, Character Study, F/M, Gen, all canon warnings apply, based of the cardcaptor sakura manga, implied touya/yukito, references to student/teacher relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 04:17:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9802289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vashti_lives/pseuds/vashti_lives
Summary: When she was thirteen she saw how she would die, but what she didn't see was how much would come after that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a character study about Nadeshiko, because I'm fond of her and I find all the things unsaid about her very interesting. It also started off as a way for me to explain some of the weirder life choices made by Nadeshiko and Fujitaka from an internal, in-story perspective (since the actual answer is probably that CLAMP is low key weird and creepy about relationships, which is neither fun nor satisfying.) It ended up exploring some other things too. Because of my obsession with tiny details it possibly requires a pretty strong working knowledge of the Cardcaptor Sakura canon, in particular the manga. 
> 
> If I'm rather obscure about certain things I'm sorry. I had a hard time deciding how explicit to be about a theory I have and I decided to error on the side of opacity, though if you've read a lot of CLAMP you're probably used to that anyway. Unbeta'd because nobody in my social circle is as obsessed with CCS as I am.

When she was thirteen Nadeshiko foresaw her own death. She saw the slow grinding bronchitis that led to pneumonia, which led to a trip to the hospital and a staph infection. Most of all she saw how little time she had. Unless she aged very, very well indeed the woman in her vision could not be older than thirty.

 

She tried not to dwell. The sudden death of her parents four years before had taught her that time was precious and this only hammered that lesson home. This death was inevitable and unchangeable-- the things she saw in that way always were. All she could do was meet her death gracefully when it came and live her best life until then.

 

When she was thirteen she saw how she would die, but what she didn't see was how much would come after that.

 

  1. Yuuko Ichihara-- Space-Time Witch 




 

Sitting in the elaborate parlor Nadeshiko clutched the tea cup in an attempt to steady herself and explained-- “Things changed, just a little, after Sakura was born. Not so much at first but Fujitaka-- my husband-- became, less present or… less something. Always attentive to me but to the children he was...” she frowned, trying to find just the right words “I can't explain through any one thing, but he _did_ change. And now that I'm gone it's gotten. Worse. He's gone more and there are times when it's as if, as if he looks straight through the children. As if he can't see what they're doing.”

 

She took a sip of tea, marveling at drinking after months of being as substantial as a cloud. The dark haired women in the elaborate kimono, Yuuko-san, looked at her seriously. “Are you sure this isn't simply the stress of losing a wife and becoming the single parent of two small children? Can you be sure that the change of his behavior before wasn't simply the stress of adding a second child, an infant, into your lives?”

 

“I'm sure. I can... see it somehow. Sense it. There is something _wrong_ about Fujitaka. I don't know what it is but, there's something.”

 

“And is that your wish? To fix your husband?”

 

Nadeshiko shook her head. She had never been here before but she knew how this place worked. “No, I do not believe that I could afford the price for that.”

 

Yuuko-san smiled a surprisingly kind smile. “How wise." She took a sip of her own tea. "Then if you do not ask to fix your husband what is your wish?”

 

“I wish to remain. A spirit may last for a while on this physical plane, but it is difficult to stay without... changing. In ways I do not wish to change. And so I wish to stay so that I may watch over my children and my husband.”

 

 

Yuuko nodded and looked at her intently but said nothing. She asked again. “Will you grant my wish?”

 

“The price will be high, but I will grant it.”

 

Nadeshiko waited intently and said nothing. Choosing instead to take another sip of hot green tea.

 

Finally, Yuuko spoke. “The price is a relationship. You must choose. Your son or your daughter. They will in time both have the gift to speak to those who have passed, but only will be able to see you. Which will it be?”

 

She thought for a while, drinking tea. Then she made her choice.

 

  1. Touya-kun




 

Touya-kun looked around the little apartment with no small amount of melancholy. A home stuffed with half full packing boxes was always a little dreary but her son's gloom seemed to go beyond that. “Will I see you, when we move? You're not bound to this place are you?” His voice was small. At thirteen it was changing but at this moment he still sounded like the little boy she sometimes still thought of.

 

She smiled down at him, trying to be reassuring. If he'd been worried about this, it was no wonder he was unhappy. “Of course I'm not bound here. I've walked you and Sakura to school for years haven't I?”

 

“I suppose.” He looked around again and she wondered what he saw. She saw an undersized apartment that should have been replaced years ago. They had been saving up for a house when she died and she knew that it was only memories of her that had kept her family here so long. The move was long overdue.

 

“Has your father taken you to see the house yet?”

 

“Yes. We all went last weekend. It was nice.” 

 

“I know it can be strange to move to a new place. I'll try and keep better track of the time.” Judging by the calendar hung up on one wall it had been four months at least since she'd been here last. The difficulty, she'd discovered, in being dead was that time had far less meaning. It was far too easy these days to lose weeks or even months. Even considering that, four months seemed like an awfully short amount of time to decide to pack up and move. Fujitaka must have been privately considering it for quite some time.

 

Touya smiled “Don't worry so much about it. I'm not a little kid anymore.” It was true, a fact which still seemed so strange.

 

“I realize, but as your mother you should be able to count on me. When are you finishing the move?”

 

Touya shrugged, his ambivalence back into play. “We'll be fully moved by the end of the month. Dad wants me and Sakura to start the year in our new schools.”

 

“That sounds like a good plan to me.” As she riffled through some papers left out on the counter her spirits brightened “Besides there's no need to worry. You're all moving to Tomeda, where I grew up and spent much of my life. You'll like it there I promise.”

 

  1. Mizuki-Sensei




 

Nadeshiko waited until her son was well away from the shrine and That Woman before coming to stand next to her. Kaho Mizuki gave a small jump and Nadeshiko had to stop herself from smiling. She hadn't been wrong. This was a woman who could see ghosts. A woman who could see her. Good, that would make things easier. Softly she said “Hello Sensei.”

 

Though she may have jumped the woman who turned and smiled at her looked perfectly at ease. “Hello. I didn't hear you walk up.”

 

“No. You wouldn't have.” She waited, curious to see what Mizuki-Sensei would do next.

 

There was a long pause and then finally “Do I know you?”

 

Nadeshiko gave another smile. This was what she had been waiting for. “I am Nadeshiko Kinomoto. Touya's mother.”

 

If she surprised the other woman there was no outward sign. “I'm very pleased to meet you. I am Kaho Mizuki, but I suppose you already knew that.”

 

“Yes.” They stood under the towering tree that was the heart of this shrine and Nadeshiko watched the moon begin to rise as she thought about what she wanted to say next. There were so many things but now that she was here she found it more difficult then she'd imagined.

 

“I wouldn't have thought—” Mizuki-sensei broke off. “I would think you, of all people, would understand.” Her face was still serene but suddenly Nadeshiko was struck by just how young this woman really was, more than a decade younger then herself certainly. And how alone. What was the likelihood that she had ever met someone who came even close to matching her in power before Touya? She thought she understood, for the first time, the why.

 

But understanding was not the same as acceptance, and suddenly she felt so much sympathy for her grandfather she almost ached. Because no amount of understanding stopped her from wanting to yell. He was only fourteen and he was so alone and in a new place with no friends and an absent father, dead mother, and a baby sister to watch out for— couldn't she see?

 

And she wanted to argue, I knew I didn’t have much time left, what was the point of waiting when you knew a thing like that? It’s not the same, she wanted to say. But perhaps it didn’t matter. Perhaps hypocrisy was hypocrisy.

 

Nadeshiko felt a flash of honesty and almost said, I loved him and it was worth it, but I died without the forgiveness of my family and my children grew up so _alone_ and in hindsight, two years isn’t that long.

 

She remembered however, being in Touya's place and knew there was no point in saying any of these things for what were her past sorrows compared to the shining newness of their relationship? For a moment she wanted to reveal something she had never given voice to before.

 

She opened her mouth to speak of the wrongness in Fujitaka present this last decade and how she knew it was only going to get worse before it got better, though she could not have explained why she felt it was so. It was on the tip of her tongue to say it aloud, to make it real. Instead what came out was something else entirely.

 

“I know it's hard to understand but I think if you look you will see.” She gave a smile at the good, kind teacher who was not for her son. A smile she meant. And then she let go of the physical plane. She had thought that any magical power she had once possessed had been left with her physical body but the rush of _other_ that had gone through her was unmistakable. She wondered what precisely she had meant when she said those words.

 

  1. Yukito and Yue both




 

Nadeshiko watched her sleeping son with a melancholy mixture of fear and pride. She had felt it when the power had been transferred, but she'd thought it best to wait a little while before materializing. She'd wanted to grieve for things lost where no one could see. Though it was possible they would never speak again she could not bring herself to be sorry or angry at the choice he had made. Not when the boy sitting next to him was looking at him with such love and worry in his own face. A face that would no longer exist if not for Touya's sacrifice. She knew it wouldn't matter as she pushed herself on to the physical plane for one last goodbye, but she did it anyway. A mother's sentimentality at work.

 

“I'm so proud of you, my baby boy.” She leaned down to kiss his forehead when she heard a gasp and looked up.

 

Gold eyes looked into her own, wide with astonishment. And then Yukito was getting up. “Uh. You must be. Toya's mother.” Oh. _Oh._ This had not occurred to her, but it made perfect sense now that she thought about it.

 

Though she would miss speaking with her son joy welled up in Nadeshiko's heart. It was not in her nature to dwell on what grief could not change and though Touya would always be her first born baby she had often thought that if ever a child needed mothering, it was this child.

 

“Yukito-san. I am so happy to finally meet you!” 

 

He startled, stood up, and apologized “I didn't expect... Toya told me about you but...” He looked down at the sleeping boy next to him. “I am so sorry to have--”

 

She intervened before he could finish that sentence and took both hands in her own. Perhaps if he heard this from her he would finally believe it. “You are my son's most important person, and it would have broken his heart had you disappeared. He has had enough of that. Please do not apologize for your existence.”

 

Yukito looked down at Touya's sleeping form. “He says the same, but I can't help but think. This is so unlike him.”

 

“I don't think you need to worry. Sakura used to be like this, in the early days of changing the cards. I worried then too, but she got stronger as her body adjusted. I'm sure it will be the same for Touya.”

 

Yukito seemed distant for a moment and then he said “Yes, that's what Yue thinks too.”

 

She smiled again, feeling that this was a fair trade for her too, “Tell Yue he has my gratitude for looking after Sakura.”

 

Yukito looked startled for a brief moment, but after a second he laughed and answered “Yue says to tell you that he does not need to be thanked, because looking after Sakura is what he is for.”

 

“I'm sure that's true, but I am grateful anyway. For both of you.”

 

Yukito ducked his head, but she saw the blush on his face anyway.

 

She would have to leave soon, conserve her strength because Sakura's trials and the strange events were not over yet, but before she left she took one last look at her son and said “Tell Touya I love him and that I'm very proud.”

 

  1. Fujitaka




 

She had thought that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, better than the startled look on Fujitaka's face the first time she had appeared to him, after he'd been infused with half of Clow's powers. The compulsion that Clow had left on him, the one that made him distant and vague when it came to his son and daughter's activities was finally gone. Sakura had transformed all the cards and it was no longer needed. He, as much as Eriol-san, was free. He was himself again in that moment and with Clow's power came the ability to _see_ her once more. She'd been quite overcome-- in all their time apart she'd never really let herself miss him and now here he was.

 

But cuddled up on the couch, wings safely stowed away, she decided that her current situation might have that moment beat. The children were out, there was no Yukito or Yue to give her startled looks and she had her husband's undivided attention. Teasing was the order of the day. She felt as light and giddy as she had in their first year of marriage. “I know we'd been discussing another, but five seems a little excessive even for you.”

 

Fujitaka gave her a gentle, but somewhat confused smile. “Five what?”

 

She giggled. “Five children.” She counted on her fingers. “Touya and Sakura of course. But now there's also Kero-chan, Yue-san, and Yukito-san. Or do you think Yue-san and Yukito-san should only count as one? But that doesn't seem quite right either. Perhaps it's really four and a half?”

 

Fujitaka put an exaggerated look of dismay on his face, but it only lasted for a second before he was laughing as well. “I don't think I can be held responsible for those last three my dear.”

 

“Don't be silly, they're all Clow's creations, and you might not _be_ Clow precisely but as his reincarnation you surely must be the responsible person.”

 

“They're not precisely children...”

 

She raised her eyebrows at him in disbelief and looked towards the kitchen, which was still something of a disaster zone after the chaos of the morning. “Kero-chan and Yue-san were certainly acting like children this morning. And if you want to be literal Yukito-san is only a few years old.”

 

“Scandalous” Fujitaka managed to keep a straight face this time, though his eyes were still laughing.

 

She snorted. “Well, I guess Touya comes by it honestly.”

 

Fujitaka made sounds of outrage while she smirked and looked up at him through her eyelashes. “Are you really going to disagree? I'm only twenty-seven years old you know.”

 

“Twenty. Seven.” He was spluttering, probably in an attempt to keep from laughing.

 

She nodded seriously, “Go look it up, all the records will tell you. What would your students think, consorting with someone young enough to be their classmate—and you a forty-five-year-old man.”

 

Abruptly Fukitaka narrowed his eyes and stood up. “Come on.” He pulled her off the couch and into her arms. “I still know your birthday Nadeshiko. You are 34 years old and I have the proof.”

 

She clung to him. “Where are you taking me?”

 

“To the bedroom. Where else.” She began to smirk and he said, with great innocence “It's where I keep all the important documents of course.”


End file.
